City council accepts Belle Park plan

City council could not pass up the chance to convert Belle Park into a largely natural area along the shoreline within the city. (Elliot Ferguson/The Whig-Standard)Elliot Ferguson / Elliot Ferguson/Whig-Standard

KINGSTON — Belle Park is to become largely a natural area with smaller recreational facilities than the golf course that used to cover most of the site.

City council voted Tuesday night to adopt the plan to revert about three-quarters of the property to a natural area, create a multipurpose sports field and replace existing tennis courts with pickleball courts.

Before Belle Park Fairways closed, approximately 24 of the site’s 32 hectares were maintained or manicured for golf or walking trails. The remaining eight hectares has been left in a more naturalized or wild state.

While Lakeside District Coun. Wayne Hill sympathized with golfers faced with the loss of a low-cost municipal golf course, council supported the plan.

The vote to endorse the plan for Belle Park was preceded by a pair of delegations that took opposing views of the plan.

Longtime golfer and acting president of the Friends of Belle Park Frank Dixon asked council to defer the vote so that the financial records of the Belle Park Fairways golf course could be examined.

Dixon said financial records for the golf course between 1974 and 1999 had not been made available by the city.

Mary Louise Adams, a former member of the Belle Park working group, said the opportunity to create a large natural space within the city was too good to be missed.

“Cities need nature and they are going to need more of it in the future,” she said.

“This is not the place to solve all the city’s recreational needs. Tennis courts are nice, but they are not fantastic.”